Gina: We’ll see later. In any case, tomorrow it’s supposed to be great weather.

Kate: Vielleicht sollten wir morgen zusammen in die Stadt fahren.

Gina: Maybe we should go into town together tomorrow.

Frau Kirsche: Ah, das klingt gut.

Gina: Ah, that sounds good.

POST CONVERSATION BANTER

Frank: Let’s talk a bit about the weather in Germany, das Wetter.

Gina: Well, the weather in Germany depends on the region. Like in the other countries of Central Europe, cool and cloudy weather dominates.

Frank: The weather in the northern part of Germany is influenced by winds from the North Sea most of the time. So, temperatures over 28 Celsius in the summer…

Gina: That’s eighty-two Fahrenheit...

Frank: …and below zero degrees in winter...

Gina: …which is thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit...

Frank: ...are really uncommon.

Gina: If you want to do winter sports during Christmas time, you either have to visit the southern part of Germany or go to one of those new indoor skiing centers that have become very popular in recent years in the northern parts of Germany.

Frank: There are four distinct seasons. Spring is generally around ten degrees Celsius.

Gina: ...which is fifty degrees Fahrenheit.

Frank: Autumn is the same, except rainier, and can sometimes bring storms.

Gina: Extreme weather phenomena such as hurricanes have been virtually unknown in Germany until recently.

Frank: Floods may happen along major rivers, but forest fires and earthquakes are not a concern for Germans.

Gina: That’s good!

VOCAB LIST

Frank: scheinen [natural native speed]

Gina: to shine, to seem

Frank: scheinen [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: scheinen [natural native speed]

Frank: sollen [natural native speed]

Gina: shall, supposed to

Frank: sollen [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: sollen [natural native speed]

Frank: besichtigen [natural native speed]

Gina: to tour

Frank: besichtigen [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: besichtigen [natural native speed]

Frank: Sonne [natural native speed]

Gina: sun

Frank: Sonne [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: Sonne [natural native speed]

Frank: später [natural native speed]

Gina: later

Frank: später [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: später [natural native speed]

Frank: trotzdem [natural native speed]

Gina: despite that, anyway

Frank: trotzdem [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: trotzdem [natural native speed]

Frank: Fall [natural native speed]

Gina: case, fall

Frank: Fall [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: Fall [natural native speed]

Frank: regnen [natural native speed]

Gina: to rain

Frank: regnen [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: regnen [natural native speed]

Frank: sehen [natural native speed]

Gina: to see

Frank: sehen [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: sehen [natural native speed]

Frank: schön [natural native speed]

Gina: nice, pretty

Frank: schön [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Frank: schön [natural native speed]

KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES

Gina: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase we'll look at is

Frank: heute noch.

Gina: This means “for the rest of the day”, specifically referring to today. It is used to talk about timeframes, in particular, plans.

Frank: heute, or “today”, is able to move around the sentence, as long as it borders phrases and doesn’t separate verbs from their subjects.

Gina: And there are many contexts in which you’ll see this. Let’s name a few.

Frank: heute Nacht

Gina: “tonight”.

Frank: Then we have heute Morgen

Gina: “this morning” - and there’s another one that means exactly the same thing.

Frank: That’s heute frueh

Gina: It also means “this morning”.

Frank: heute Vormittag

Gina: “this morning”, after breakfast time.

Frank: heute Nachmittag

Gina: “this afternoon”

Frank: And finally heute Abend

Gina: “this evening”, tonight before bedtime.

Frank: Okay. The next words we’ll look at are Freund and Freundin.

Gina: The male and female versions of “friend” in German.

Frank: Yeah. In German, the gender generally has to be indicated.

Gina: Fortunately, it's not very difficult. Just add “-IN” to the ends of most words. This works for professions, nationalities, and so on.

Frank: And the last expression we’ll look at is "in any case", in German auf jeden Fall.

Gina: It is almost an exact translation from English, so this should not give you any trouble. Okay, now onto the grammar.

Lesson focus

Frank: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the two verbs sollen and sollten, meaning ‘Should’.

Gina: Let’s take a look at the first one.

Frank: The first one is sollen. It’s a modal verb.

Gina: German modal verbs behave almost exactly like regular verbs. There are just two changes. The “I” and the “he/she” or “it” forms are both just the verb stem.

Frank: Soll in this case. Instead of the expected ich solle and er sollt, you get ich soll and er soll.

Gina: Let’s have a quick rundown of the conjugation.

Frank: ich soll

Gina: “I should”; “I’m supposed to”

Frank: du sollst

Gina: “you should”; “you’re supposed to.” This is the informal second person singular.

Frank: er soll

Gina: “he should”; “he’s supposed to”

Frank: sie soll

Gina: “she should”; “she’s supposed to”

Frank: es soll

Gina: “it should”; “it’s supposed to”

Frank: wir sollen

Gina: “we should”; “we’re supposed to”

Frank: ihr sollt

Gina: “you should”; “you’re supposed to”

Frank: sie sollen

Gina: “they should”; “they’re supposed to”

Frank: Sie sollen

Gina: “you should”; “you’re supposed to”. This is the second person, polite form.

Frank: So you can see that sollen is used to talk about things you have to do. For example, Meine Eltern sagen, ich soll heute viel lernen.

Gina: “My parents say I should study a lot today.” This can sound a little direct, however.

Frank: German has a way around this to soften the blow!

Gina: When saying what somebody else should do, it's more polite to use the conditional form...

Frank: ...which is sollte. Just add an extra "TE" to create sollte, like er sollte gehen.

Gina: “He should go.”

Frank: Without knowing the conditional tense, you can just conjugate sollte the same as sollen. The endings are the same in this case.

Gina: There's one final use we should mention now.

Frank: es soll is also used for "it's supposed to"

Gina: particularly when talking about the weather. Please gives us an example, Frank!

Frank: Morgen soll die Sonne scheinen.

Gina: “Tomorrow, the sun is supposed to shine.”

Frank: This makes sollen unavoidable when talking about a weather report. Definitely remember this verb. It’s going to come in handy.

Outro

Gina: Well, that does it for this lesson! Make sure to check the lesson notes, and we’ll see you next time.

I was listening and reading through the notes, and noticed that for the conversation (in the English translation), Frau Kirsche asked Kate what is she doing TODAY. Kate says she plans to see the town, then to the pub in the evening.

Frau Kirsche then tells her that it is supposed to rain TOMORROW.

Is it me or is there a mistake there? I read and reread it many times, made me so confused. What is correct? Is the correct sentence supposed to be:

Frau Kirsche saying that it might rain TODAY, and the weather is good TOMORROW.

Thank you for your help

GermanPod101.com

Saturday at 4:29 pm

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Hello Israel Safra,

Thank you for posting.

The dialogue audio is correct.

You can hear background noise because the speakers are talking in a host family's home.

Let us know if you have any question.

Cheers,

Lena

Team GermanPod101.com

Germanpod101.com

Saturday at 2:20 pm

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Hi Israel Safra,

Thanks for commenting.

Well, in both cases werden is related to the future. Du wirst sehen. You will see. Es soll schön werden. It will be nice (e.g. the weather).

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